NAVIGATING INDIA'S POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

PROSPECTS FOR NARENDRA MODI'S RE-ELECTION

- Vaishali Basu Sharma

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third term in office. Amid his claim 'Ab ki baar, NDA sarkar, 400 paar...', the Bharatiya Janata Party. (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is on course for a hattrick of terms in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2024, according to several opinion poll results.

Voting for the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Indian Parliament, will go on from April 19 to June 1, over six weeks. Nearly a billion voters will exercise their right to vote in the general elections of the world's biggest democracy. A maximum of 1,500 voters are allowed for every polling station and there will be over a million polling stations. The results will be declared on June 4.

The poll panel is currently headed by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar. A record 2,798 political parties are registered with the Election Commission of India (ECI) as of March 5, 2024. Almost 5.5 million electronic voting machines will be deployed and nearly 400,000 vehicles will be used in the six weeks of polling.

With over 2150 senior officers from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), and Indian Police Service (IPS) as well as officers from the Indian Revenue Service (IRS), 15 million polling officials and security staff will be deployed as observers. The Central Armed Police Forces will be deployed, and they will be assisted by integrated control rooms in each district. Drones will be used for vigilance. The strong technical safeguards in electronic voting machines and elaborate administrative safeguards, procedures and security put in place by ECI to ensure that the elections are transparent, free and fair.